


I Do Not Hook Up, I Go Slow

by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Damla Adaar [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunkenness, F/M, Miscommunication, Pining, Polyamorous Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After discovering Blackwall is actually Thom Rainier, Damla Adaar has to come to terms with how unhealthy that particular relationship was for her, and find a way to move on. Maybe with the handsome Tevinter mercenary she's been making eyes at for forever?</p><p>Note: No, I actually don't hate Blackwall, and I think his romance can definitely work for certain Inquisitors even after the Rainier reveal. It just does not work at all for this particular Inquisitor, mainly because of Damla's insecurities.</p><p>Oh! also. this can be read as a companion piece to my first short fic about Damla's judgment of Blackwall, but some of the same themes are reiterated, so you don't strictly need to read the other one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Can Tell The Truth About You Leaving

“Heard about Blackwall,” Bull says, settling his massive bulk next to Damla’s at the table she’s chosen for herself in a dark corner of The Herald’s Rest’s second floor. “Or…whatever his name is. Shit. The whole thing’s messed up, boss.”

Damla grunts, lifting her eyes from her second – maybe third? – mug to flick them over at Bull. She goes back to staring at the bottom of her glass. 

“You gonna…try and get him out of it? Bring him back here, I mean.”

“Josephine’s takin’ care of it,” Damla mutters thickly. Bull grunts in acknowledgement.

“Huh. Figures.”

It’s Damla Adaar’s first night back at Skyhold since she took a group to Val Royeaux to hunt down their vanished Warden and bring him back. She’d spent a week in that city, trading messages via birds and couriers with her advisors, and mostly sticking around to ensure no one dropped a noose around her lover’s neck without her say-so. Her name, and that of the Inquisition, carried a lot of weight in that city, after she’d placed Gaspard on the throne. If executing a murderer displeased her (even one wanted for killing children), well, they were at least going to think twice about it. The realization was an unpleasant one. Damla wasn’t used to having that much authority over anyone, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. It was too much power for one person to have, even if it was damn helpful in this instance. What would she would have done if they had tried to kill Blackwall – Rainier – regardless? Would she have busted him out? The thought of watching them hang him made her insides twist up, but…it wasn’t her place to go against the Orlesian justice system, not really. 

In any case, Damla had waited in Val Royeaux until she was confident nothing was going to happen to Blackw- to him, and then she’d returned to Skyhold to iron out the rest of the diplomatic agreements concerning his release. And now she had every intention of getting drunk off her ass. 

The clatter of stoneware mugs knocking together in someone’s hands heralds the arrival of yet another witness to Damla’s dejection. Three mugs are slid onto the table, one before her, one before Bull, and another which the bearer places in front of the spot directly across from Damla. Krem pulls out a chair.

“Got the next round,” he announces, both unnecessarily and, Damla’s sluggish mind supplies, rather pushily.

“Thinks he’s staying, does he?” she thinks. Well, maybe she says that bit, judging by the way Bull and Krem both glance at her.

“There’s a lot of things outside our expertise, Your Worship, but a night of drinking ‘cause somebody turned out to be an asshole? That ain’t one of ‘em,” Krem says. He lifts his mug in something like a salute and Damla is pretty sure the word for the look he sends her starts with an s. Smug? Smile? Ah, smirk, that’s the one.

“Asshole,” she repeats, and it’s not clear whether she’s referring to the man once known as Blackwall, or Krem. The smirk gets wider. 

“Got that right,” Bull agrees with Krem, chuckling. “There was this one-” 

“What are you wearing?” Damla interrupts, narrowing her eyes at Krem.

“Clothes, Your Worship, same as you,” Krem says without missing a beat. Damla takes a drink while she tries to figure out why he looks wrong. He’s wearing a loose white shirt tucked into simple brown trousers and old, worn boots that look soft. Snofleur leather, most likely. There’s a dagger on his hip, but otherwise he’s not armed. That part’s not surprising. That maul he wields is too damn big to be packing around for casual conversations.

“No, you…” Damla frowns. Something about his silhouette is off – it’s not as sharp and solid as it should be, not as - “You’re not wearing your armor,” she realizes with a start. “Aha!” She waves a large hand at him triumphantly. 

“Kind of you to notice.” Krem snarks, his lips twitching.

“I’ve never seen you without your armor.”

“Wellll. Can’t go around dressed in metal all the time, can I?” 

He looks… “Good,” Damla mumbles. “’s a good look on you, Krem.” He’s got one arm thrown over the back of his chair, the other hand wrapped around his mug, and Damla is pretty sure she’s never seen him appear so relaxed before. He’s always open and friendly with her, when they’re drinking and she’s whiling stories about the Chargers out of him. But this is different.

“He’s Aclassi guy,” Bull says, sagely, and Damla starts. She’d almost forgotten Bull was even there.

Krem groans loudly and pitches one of the unshelled peanuts from the bowl on the table at Bull’s face.

“Pretty sure she’s already heard that one, Chief. Maybe _a dozen times_.”

Bull just laughs at him.

“Remember the first woman I used that one on for ya? Pretty brunette over in Val Royeaux, what was her name?”

“Brigitte,” Krem says.

“Right. So you gotta hear this one, Boss…” Bull launches into a lengthy story about trying to hook Krem up with this barmaid he couldn’t take his eyes off of. 

*****

Sometime later that night (at least, Damla thinks it’s still night), Damla has ended up sprawled halfway across the table, her head cushioned on one arm. Krem’s straddling the back of his chair (not merely sitting backwards, but perched precariously over the back). It’s probably not the safest position for him, with how much they’ve imbibed tonight, but no one really questions it. Dorian and Sera joined them hours ago – Damla thinks Sera is asleep under the table, and Dorian’s leaned back in his chair with his feet in Bull’s lap.

“And it’s not as if I care that he killed people. So he got paid to take out some fancy Orlesian bastards. So what. I’ve done that,” Damla slurs.

“I’ve done that,” Bull says with a slow grin, bobbing his head. 

“We’ve done a lot of that,” Krem corrects.

“I mean, yeah, it’s hypocritical of him if he was some paid soldier, or whatever…”

“Especially with how the man likes to go on about honor and duty and such,” Dorian interrupts. 

“But you know what gets me? It’s not the killing, though killing kids is shitty no matter what way you look at it, and it’s not the taking money to kill, or any of that. He goes and spends all these years hiding out, saving his own skin, and he lets his _men_ take the fall for him. His own men! Executed. They didn’t know anything. They just did what he told them to.” Damla studies the wood grain of the table under her arm, her voice lowering. “How does someone do something like that?” I don’t…I don’t believe in much. None of this Maker nonsense, or the-Qun-is-all-perfect nonsense, or Herald-of-Andraste nonsense. But I could never betray my own men like that. The thought of – of letting any of the Valo-Kas, or any of _you_ get killed for my choices or mistakes, I…I could never…” her voice dies.

Silence, and then, “That’s what makes you the kind of leader worth following, Boss,” Bull says.

Damla sniffs. Suddenly there’s a hand brushing through the short-cropped spike of red-brown hair between her horns, gentle but persistent. She arches up towards the pleasant sensation without thinking, catlike, and tilts her head to find Krem looking down at her. 

“He pretended to be something he wasn’t, because he thought it would make him better than he was. And the only reason he ever wanted _me_ was because he wanted me to make a good man out of him.” Damla lifts her head, slightly, but Krem’s hand doesn’t stop smoothing its way through her hair. “D’you think he ever wanted me at all, or just what I represented to him?”

Dorian says, “You’re the Inquisitor. It’s impossible not to want someone as beautiful and powerful as yourself.” He gives a little self-satisfied smirk when Bull arches a brow and shoots him a look, adding, "So I understand."

“Great,” Damla mutters. “Another thing for me to represent in people’s fantasies. As if the horns weren't enough on their own.”

“I think Dorian means you’re very likable, Worship,” Krem says.

Damla scoffs.

“You know I gave up fucking very attractive soldiers for that man? Like I thought it would make him happy, or something,” she changes the subject. “I could have fucked the damn Emperor of Orlais, for fuck’s sake. Or his right-hand chevalier. Or both. Fucking asshole.”

“I say fuck him,” says Bull, who has been watching the Inquisitor with extra keen eyes since the horns comment. ‘You don’t like or trust him anymore, after the shit he’s pulled? Nothing wrong with that. Fuck him.”

“But not literally,” Dorian says. “Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What, hate-fucking?” Damla sits up, or tries to, and promptly has to put her head down again. “No. Been there, done that, damn well never doing that again,” she says.

Krem’s hand drops to the table when Damla sits up, and he swings his leg over and drops down into his chair normally. When she flops back down onto the table, he looks at Bull. Damla is pretty sure a whole nonverbal conversation going on up there but it goes – literally – over her head.

Eventually Bull says, “Well. Time to call it a night. Boss, you’re bunking with the Chargers tonight. No way you’re in good enough shape to make it back to that tower of yours.”

“Mm, can I come too?” Dorian purrs. There’s another nonverbal communication then. Damla lifts her head and manages to focus just enough to pick out the spark of heat dancing between Dorian and Bull’s gaze before Bull says,

“Sure thing.”

Somehow Bull ends up supporting all three of them across the lawn to the Charger’s barracks, because of course the big bastard isn’t as drunk as the rest of them. It’s impressive, with Damla nearly as tall as he is. Then Dorian and Bull disappear into the room Bull has to himself, and Damla somehow ends up wrapped inside three bedrolls on the floor by Krem’s bunk, since all the bunks in the room are too small for her. Krem tugs off her boots and sets them at the end of her bedroll. The last thing she sees is his face above her own.

“Night, Worship,” he says with a little grin, and then Damla is lost to the world. 

***** 

A sing-songy voice crashes through the dull fog of unconsciousness, waking Damla. 

“Morning, Worship,” Krem says in a far too cheerful tone for whatever time it is. Damla moans loudly and tries to tug a pillow over her head to drown out his voice. And the sunlight. And the raging headache. Krem, the Vint bastard, catches the pillow in one hand before she can and takes it. “Brought you something to help with the hangover,” he says, perching on the edge of his bunk above her. 

Damla struggles to a seated position, hugging her knees to her chest and then dropping her forehead onto them with another groan. At Krem’s quiet snicker, she lifts her head to send him a death glare. The room drops in temperature a few degrees. Krem arches a brow, unfazed by this display of unconscious magic. 

“What is it?” she finally manages to croak, when Krem holds out a glass with a nasty looking green-black mixture inside it, too thick and viscous to really even properly be called a drink.

“Stitches’ famous cure-all, the one Bull was telling you about. Figured you could drink it and it wouldn’t hurt you even if it is a poultice, seeing as how you and the chief are both Qunari.” Krem shrugs, and somewhere in the foggy recesses of Damla’s mind she registers the fact that he’s back in his armor again.

“Vashoth,” she grumbles, as she takes the glass from him and eyes it suspiciously. “I’m Vashoth, not fucking Qunari. You don’t see my lips stitched shut and my horns cut off, do you.” With a face, she takes a breath and downs the whole thing in one go.

Krem blanches. 

“Yeah, I know,” he says, voice soft. 

Damla gags, and has to swallow several times before she can convince the concoction to go all the way down. Krem’s hand grips her shoulder, steadying her, and she leans forward and drops her forehead onto his closest knee. 

“Piss of the Maker, that shit is nasty,” she groans. Already her head is clearer, though, and she sees what Bull means about it having you back on your feet. She feels like she could spring up and take on a rift full of demons without any trouble. Krem’s hand has drifted to the back of her neck, just under her horns, and he chuckles warmly. Damla lifts her head to look at him. His hand lingers, brushes over the short hair on her nape where her mohawk starts, and then he pulls away. 

“How do you feel?”

“Better,” Damla admits. “Bull’s right about that stuff. But you knew that.” Krem grins widely, and Damla tries to avoid drawing parallels between the brightness of his smile and the sun. Because that would be absurd. “Thank you, Krem.”

“Anytime, Your Worship,” he says. “I think Cullen might be looking for you, actually. Reports of troop movements or something.”

Damla lets out a long-suffering sigh, more drawn out than is strictly necessary for nothing more than her usual Inquisitor responsibilities. Krem’s eyebrow raises again in question. She shakes her head without answering. 

“Back to it, then.” Damla stands, wobbling only slightly. 

“Want me to walk you there?”

“What? No, I’m all right. Well, I mean, if you want to…” Damla stops when she realizes she’s about to start babbling. “I’ll need to stop by my rooms first.”

“Of course.” Krem falls in step alongside her, and when he goes to hold the door to the barracks open for her, she bites her lip and frowns. Instead, he walks through it and holds it just enough so that it doesn’t close in her face. 

A small smile touches Damla’s lips as she follows him out. 

*****

Krem waits outside in the hall as Damla freshens up and changes into new clothes for the day, and then he walks with her from her rooms to Cullen’s tower as well. On the battlements outside Cullen’s door, he draws to a stop. Damla reaches up to poke at the freshly re-greased spike of hair between her horns and looks at him. 

“Here we are, then,” Krem says.

Damla nods.

“You look great, Worship,” he says when Damla fidgets again. “Considering the hangover you should be having right now.” Damla makes a face at him, and he laughs. 

“Thanks, Krem. For…last night. And this morning.”

He reaches out, and Damla catches her breath, just for a moment. Then he’s squeezing her arm and smiling. “Anytime, Inquisitor.”

He heads off towards the stairs, and leaves her there.


	2. I Can Tell The Truth About You Leaving

A few days later and it’s all settled. Rainier is on his way to Skyhold for judgement, accompanied by Inquisition forces. Damla has viewed and reviewed all the facts of his crime and his trial to prepare herself for the judgment, and she’s talked over every viable option for punishment with all of her advisors and Cassandra until she doesn’t want to hear another word about the actions of the man once called Thom Rainier. She still doesn’t know what she’s going to do when he gets here.

She gets drunk again instead of thinking about it anymore.

Varric joins in this time, and he tells tale after tale about Hawke that Damla can lose herself in. It helps, for a while. And then she reaches that point of too-drunk where the alcohol isn’t helping her forget so much as it is making her remember, and she’s sprawled across a bench in the tavern, long grey limbs ungainly against the wood, and the hot pressure of barely suppressed tears in her eyes. 

“I just,” she mumbles. “I wake up, and he’s gone? Just like that? If he was going to just fuck and run, why didn’t he skip the fucking and just do the running? He claims to be such a terrible person – oooh I’m not the man you think I am, boo hoo – and yeah, he’s fucking right about that, as it turns out, but then he tries so hard to be virtuous, like that’s so important to him clearly, and then he goes and does _that_? That’s classic asshole move, right there. Everybody does that. How boring can you get. Do you know how many men I’ve had sneak out in the middle of the night like that? Fuck, it’d be faster to tell you how many didn’t. Maybe one? Two? I don’t even know. The point is…” she stretches to reach for her mug on the table and gives it up as futile when the blurry mug just seems to keep getting farther and farther away. “The point is he’s an asshole,” she concludes, flopping her head back down into Krem’s lap. The Vint has, at a point in the evening which Damla no longer remembers, resumed the finger-combing-through-hair behavior of the other night, which is rather odd, but she’s not complaining.

She sits up again abruptly, which turns out to be a terrible idea as the whole room swims. She groans, clapping a hand to her forehead.

“Careful, Worship,” Krem says, steadying her.

“’s that griffon thing he was always carving still in the stables? I bet it is. You know what sounds good. A fire. Yeah. I’m gonna…” She starts to get to her feet when she feels like she can move without puking.

A number of voices sound their alarm and dismay behind her.

“Boss, I don’t think-”

“Hang on, Inquisitor-”

“Let’s not be hasty, Damla-”

“Just a little fire,” Damla pleads. “Not the whole stable. Although…no, that wouldn’t be fair to Dennet.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Krem says, stopping her with an arm around her waist. “You’re liable to set all of Skyhold on fire if you go wandering around in this state.”

Damla pouts. “Just a lil fire,” she mumbles again.

Across the table, Bull raises his brows and exchanges a look with Krem.

“Let’s just get you back to your rooms, Worship,” Krem suggests helpfully.

“Yeah, I’ll walk with you,” Bull says, standing. 

Damla sighs.

She ends up supported between the two of them, awkwardly, on the long trek out of the tavern, up into the great hall towards her tower, through the doors and up the steps to her room. She sways towards the stairs that lead to the stables before they make it into the hall, but Krem and Bull pull her back. 

“You two're absolutely no fun at all,” she slurs at them.

“I have a feeling Cassandra would have our hides for that kind of fun in the morning, Boss,” Bull says. 

“Pshhhhaw,” Damla says, attempting to wave a hand about and smacking Krem upside the head with it. He grunts.

Finally, in her room, Bull drops her onto the bed and Krem swings her legs up, tugging off her boots and then going for some kind of pan or pot or bucket and setting it on her bedside table, within arm’s reach. Damla thinks about protesting once more, but now that she’s in bed, it seems very comfortable, and she doesn’t really feel like leaving it, actually. Maybe she'll just...stay here. For now. It's warm and soft. Yeah. 

*****

She stays some level of intoxicated until the day Rainier arrives. That day, though she wakes up with a raging hangover and desperately wants a drink, she forces herself to stay sober. She plans her outfit carefully – not too formal, not too informal, just the right level of aloof, powerful. 

Her hands are shaking when she sits down on the throne.

Then they bring him in. 

And the sight of Blackwall (Rainier, _Rainier_. Maker, why can’t she remember his real name?) in chains cuts her as deep as the loss of the man she thought she knew, and she’s holding herself so very still to keep from going to him even as part of her is still so _angry_. But it’s anger that’s just lashing out to hide the pain in her breast, and she fights it hard, all of it, the hurt, the rage, the need for him, wishing she could feel nothing, nothing at all. She’s been burned too many times to go back to him after this. And no, it’s not about what he did, not at all, it’s about the way he’s so damn angry with her for saving his life, because it damages the image of her he has in his head, where she’s some holy successor to the Maker’s bride instead of a Vashoth mercenary who just wants to be seen for herself. 

She sentences him to be sent to the Wardens, after this war with Corypheus is over. Maybe it’s a death sentence, in the long run, with that taint Alistair speaks of. But it’s the Wardens his lies have hurt most, except the men of his he can’t get back, so the Wardens it is. 

If it saves her from watching him be executed, no matter what he’s done, well.


	3. The More That You Try, The Harder I'll Fight To Say Goodnight

The bottle of ale droops from boneless fingers as Damla hunches in on herself, elbows on spread knees. In the sky, the moon is full over Skyhold’s garden, and Damla is, for once, blessedly alone. The last few penitents and revelers drifted away from the garden at least an hour ago. Maybe they were helped along by a desire to give the Inquisitor some privacy, or maybe they were driven off by the intense drop in temperature and the snowflakes flurrying around the drunk Vashoth, but whatever the reason, Damla’s grateful for it. 

On some level, she feels like she’s being absurd. It’s not like her to get so torn up over a lover. But then, Blackwall wasn’t exactly just another lover. It had taken them months to get around to the actual sleeping together part. She’d thought he was different. 

Well, she’d been wrong about that, hadn’t she.

She tips the bottle back to her mouth.

A twig snaps under a heavy boot nearby, and Damla jerks in surprise.

“Heard you were out here,” Krem says, drifting out from the shadows by the gazebo. “Thought you might like some company?” The upward tilt to the last comment marks it as a question, and Damla finds, suddenly, that she does. At least his company. She shifts over on her bench to make room for him. Krem sits. “We haven’t really seen you in a few days,” he says, after a few moments of silence that really aren’t that uncomfortable.

“Needed some time to think,” Damla mumbles.

“May I?” Krem gestures at the bottle in her hand, and Damla hands it over wordlessly. He drinks. “I get it,” he says, handing the bottle back.

“Doubt it’s going to last much longer,” Damla says, studying the ale, twisting the bottle in her hands. “I’ve already got everybody clamoring for me to come back to work, that I’m needed. Rifts here, reports of Venatori here, everybody’s in deep shit everywhere, and don’t I know we’re fighting a war for all of Thedas.” 

Krem is quiet at her side. 

“This whole thing has just been a distraction,” Damla sighs.

“You couldn’t have predicted any of this would happen, Your Worship.”

Damla doesn’t respond.

“And maybe it did end up going to shit,” Krem says, and his voice is suddenly stronger. “But still, you – you put yourself out there, you know? Took a chance. Tried for something great. Say what you want about how it turned out, but I think that’s really brave.”

Damla turns to look at him, worrying at her lip, and finds him gazing at her, strangely intense in the moonlight. She thinks, not for the first time, how handsome he is, and she wonders, not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss him. So she does.

His lips are soft, and he tastes faintly of ale, and it’s pleasant, Maker, more than pleasant, but Krem is very still under the press of her lips, and then he's scooting back, away. He stands abruptly and breaks the kiss, turning his back to her. 

“Krem?” Damla says, and shit. Shit, shit. This is bad, this is very bad, this is exactly why she should have just stayed alone tonight, should have told him no when he asked to stay. Of course he doesn’t want her; he’s just being kind to the woman with the broken heart. He doesn’t see her like that. Why would he? “Oh, Maker, Krem, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have…I don’t know what came over me, I…”

But she does know what came over her, because she’s drunk tonight, but she’s not _that_ drunk, and the truth of the matter is she’s admired the curve of his face for months, loved the sound of his laugh and his stories about the Chargers. If it hadn’t been for Blackwall, she would have kissed him ages ago, because she’s never been one to just limit herself to being with one person. But Blackwall, he was different, she thought he was different, and he looked at her with such adoration and called her lady, and she thought – she thought she could change for him, love him and only him because if he really, truly loved her and wanted her, that was all she really needed, wasn’t it? That was all she’d ever wanted. Except Blackwall isn’t Blackwall, he’s Rainier, and while she’s spent months alone in her bed pining after him, now he’s back in the stables where he was before there’s no way in the void she’s ever going back to him. And now…now maybe if she can just go back to who she was before, who she’s always been, the kind of woman who doesn’t save herself for mysterious men with damaged pasts but is with whoever she wants, when she wants them, maybe she can – maybe she can forget the man whose real name is Thom. 

All of that only works when the other person wants her back, and the people who really want a vashoth mage are few and far between, and that’s what Damla has forgotten after months of being called beautiful and actually, supposedly, desired. 

Krem still hasn’t turned back to her, though he hasn’t left either, and Damla knows she’s going to break down if she stays here a moment longer.

“I’m just…I’m gonna go. Let’s just forget this ever happened,” Damla mumbles and then she grips the bottle of ale tight in her fingers and hurries for the door, her head ducked.

“Damla, wait,” Krem calls behind her, but Damla doesn’t stop, because she’s clearly drunk enough to be imagining that he would ever call her by her name.


	4. I Fall Deep

“Horn’s up!” Bull says, and Damla grins to herself as the Chargers all form little horns like Bull’s with their fingers and march off. Her gaze lingers on Krem’s armored back, but then she catches herself and looks away. Things have awkward between them in the month since Damla kissed him, but they've started to come around again, back to the old camaraderie they had before the shit with Rainier. She doesn't want to damage their fragile friendship with long, pining looks. Maker. 

With the Chargers gone, she’s left with Bull – Hissrad, whatever his real title is – and the strange Qunari elf, and that's enough to distract her from thoughts of Krem. Damla tightens her fingers around her staff and tries to quell the sharp panic in her belly and the hitch in her breathing. Elf or no, he’s still Qunari, and she’s still Vashoth, the kind these Ben Hassrath hunt down and eradicate for a living. She had desperately not wanted to be here. Why had she allowed her advisors to talk her into it? An alliance with the Qunari was a dangerous, bad, fucking no-good idea. And after this war with Corypheus was over, what then? The slimy bastards would use any goodwill still extended to them as part and parcel of their plan to enslave the rest of Thedas, that’s what. Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches, they would all fall, and she with them. Hadn’t her old Saara taught her better than to be willingly associated with Qunari? Bad enough that she let Bull join up – worse still that she was starting to actually like him. Fuck.

Fear wraps around her, blankets her, immobilizes her. 

Then Dorian puts one hand on her back and the other over her clenched fingers on her staff. 

“Breathe,” he whispers, and she does so, a great shuddering breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding. He pats her back encouragingly and murmurs, “You didn’t tell them how you felt about Qunari when you let them push you into this, did you?” He takes the glare she sends him as confirmation and chuckles. “Of course not. Well, just keep breathing. He doesn’t deserve to know you’re afraid of him.”

She nods, quickly, as Bull and Gatt and Cassandra start making their way up the hill. 

“I can do this,” she says, as much to convince herself as Dorian.

“Never a doubt in my mind, Damla,” Dorian says cheerfully. He turns to follow the group. 

“Dorian-” Damla grabs his sleeve to stop him. “If this all goes to shit – if they try and take me, promise me you’ll – you’ll do what it takes to stop them? I’d rather be dead than in Ben Hassrath hands.”

He draws back, clasping her hand in both of his. “My dear Inquisitor, Cassandra would have all their heads if such a thing were even attempted. And then, I expect, the rather large army you’ve been collecting would start a holy war on your behalf. You are the leader of a very powerful military might. I don’t think the Qunari will even attempt to remove you. You’re quite safe.”

Damla swallows, nods again.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

*****

They make short work of the Venatori camped along the shore – Bull charging in the lead, Damla freezing her attackers and then shattering them with a sweep of her knight enchanter’s blade while Cassandra guards her back and Dorian casts from a distance. They are as well-oiled a machine of death as any company Damla has known, perhaps better, and it gives her a kind of grim satisfaction to know that they front they present to this Qunari spy is a unified and deadly one. 

When the last Vint lies dead, they draw near the cliff together to watch the sea battle. A stream divides the hill they’re standing on from the next hill over, where Damla can see the Chargers have finished with their own battle. Krem, distinctive in his armor, catches sight of them, and lifts his broad maul in a salute. Damla finds herself raising her staff in answer, and she lets ice flow from her fingertips to the eyehole of the skull atop. The ice catches the sun, which has just emerged from the clouds, and winks it back at Krem and the rest of the Chargers. She wishes she could see his face, but the distance is too great, and anyways, his helmet shrouds his face from view. 

Everything is going well, better even than Damla could have hoped, when the Vint mages appear from nowhere below the rise the Chargers have occupied. They’re cornered by a superior force. For a moment, Damla is frozen. This can’t be happening. The Chargers are more than capable, _Krem_ is more than capable, they can handle anything that’s thrown at them. But it quickly becomes obvious that they can’t, not this time, as the Vints swarm them, overwhelm their ranks. Gatt is demanding that Bull abandon his men, sacrifice them for this mission and, at the risk of this so-called alliance, that Damla does too. 

She waits for Bull to refuse, but he doesn’t. 

His ‘friend’ is urging him to comply, to prove that he hasn’t gone rogue like all the others say he has. Bull’s face is anguished. 

“They’re _my_ men,” he says, fiercely, but still he doesn’t sound the retreat. 

Damla panics.

“So help me, Bull, save them!” she cries. He doesn’t look at her. Marching over, she grabs him by the horns and turns him to face her, glaring up the few remaining inches into his one eye. “Sound the damn retreat!” she demands. He shakes her off easily with one twist of his great head, taking a step towards the cliff edge, and looking back and forth between the Chargers and the dreadnought wildly. But still, he does not give the signal. A snowstorm gathers around Damla like it does whenever she loses her temper, whipping her clothes and driving into her eyes and collecting ice like a thin layer of armor over her upper body. “You fucking Qunari bastard!” she roars, sending a blast of icy air at Bull and Gatt which sets them both staggering. 

Damla rushes down the hill, towards the stream separating her from Krem and the Chargers, no plan in mind except to save them. The snowstorm keeps pace, obscuring her vision, but she rushes on, heedless. Behind her, Dorian swears loudly at Bull before he and Cassandra follow. When she reaches the water’s edge, she plants her feet and her staff and freezes a three foot wide path across the water, solid enough to hold her weight and the weight of the others. She sprints across it. 

Safe on the opposite shore, she hears a loud horn sound. Bull has called the retreat, but Damla isn’t sure if he’s called it soon enough. She races up the hill to find the Chargers rushing towards her. But she doesn’t see Krem.

“Chargers, move your asses!” she cries, flinging shards of ice over their heads at a trio of Vints still tailing them. Dorian races to her side from one direction, Dalish from the other, and together they cover the retreat. “Where’s Krem?” she shouts at Dalish.

“He was right behind me!” the elf yells back, lightning sprouting from the gem at the top of her ‘bow.’

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Damla growls. “Cover the rest of them and then get the void out of here!” she orders, summoning her knight enchanter’s blade in one hand. She darts forward.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra screams behind her, but Damla keeps going, weaving between fleeing Chargers. A few of them stop to stare at her. 

“Don’t stand there gawping, you idiots,” Damla yells. “ _Move_!” 

They obey, rushing past her as Damla sinks her blade in the throat of the last nearby Vint. She drops the magic so she doesn’t have to pull the blade out of the body, and summons it again a few steps further. 

She reaches a stand of trees which have been blocking her view of the rest of the rise, and rounds them to find Krem holding off five Vints on his own. Behind him, Stitches is kneeling over a Charger Damla doesn’t recognize. 

“Get her out of here, Stitches!” Krem yells over his shoulder. 

“But-”

“ _Go_!” Krem bellows, and charges the lot of remaining enemies as Stitches struggles to his feet with the wounded merc and starts making his way downhill. Damla doesn’t think she can make it up to Krem in time; already, the Vints have surrounded him. Damla goes cold, then hot. She drops her blade, whips her staff in a circular motion towards Krem, and summons a wall of ice in a circle around him. Or, most of a circle. He’s still exposed on at least one side, but that should slow them enough for Damla to reach him. Krem’s wide swing smashes into two of the Vints, taking out part of her ice wall at the same time. Two run for Damla. Damla primes an ice mine and tosses it at the ground, freezing the Vint nearest her. She slices at him with the blade on the base of her staff, then whirls to block an incoming sword blow from the other one. Ducking, she shoots a spray of icicle shards at her attacker’s face. He screams and falls, clutching at his eyes. Damla plants the blade of her staff in his chest. 

Meanwhile, of the two Vints downed by Krem's earlier blow, one is clearly dead and the other almost incapacitated. But Damla doesn't think Krem sees the rogue at his back. With a growl, she rips her staff out of the dead Vint’s chest and slams it onto the ground. A path of ice grows from her staff to the feet of the rogue, and he slips, losing his balance on the suddenly slick ground. Krem spins, the head of his maul connecting with the rogue’s head. He drops like a stone. The last wounded Venatori struggles to his feet and comes at Krem again. Damla yells, and points the head of her staff at him, freezing him in place inside a sheet of ice. Krem shatters him with one blow. He drops the head of his maul to the ground and leans on the shaft, breathing hard. Damla runs up to him. 

She reaches for his helmet and tugs it off him, needing to see his face. Her fingers smooth sweaty hair back from his forehead. There’s a cut on his cheek, bleeding freely, though Damla’s not sure how it got there. 

“Worship, what are you…what are you doing here?” Krem pants. Damla seizes him by the arm. 

“No time. There might be more of them. Move it, Cremisius,” she orders, and he complies. They sprint downhill, Krem’s helmet still in Damla’s hand. 

At the base of the hill, Dorian and Dalish are ushering the last of the Chargers back across the stream, though without Damla’s skill with ice they’re just sloshing their way through the cold water. 

“Thank the Maker,” Cassandra says, abandoning her position guarding their rear to run up to Damla and Krem. “Inquisitor! Are you harmed?”

“I’m all right, Cassandra,” Damla assures her, but she doesn’t let go of Krem’s arm. He leans heavily against her as they slow. Cassandra looks Damla up and down for injuries swiftly, and then nods. 

“Quickly, then,” Cassandra says, leading them to the water’s edge. Damla makes a face at the water and freezes an ice bridge for their passage again. Cassandra leads the way, Dorian helps them onto the opposite bank, and Dalish follows behind. When she’s across, Damla dissolves the ice. They retreat into the cover of the trees, where the rest of the Chargers have gathered. Damla finds a large rock and settles Krem onto it, then leans her staff against the nearest tree and drops his helmet to the ground. Stitches is making the rounds among the injured, and Dorian joins him, casting simple healing spells. 

Looking down at Krem, Damla asks, voice low, “Are you hurt?”

“Not badly, I don’t think.”

Damla exhales shakily and feels weak with relief. Krem’s eyes find hers, and she wants desperately to throw her arms around him, but she doesn’t dare. There’s a fierce ache in her chest. She turns away.

“I should go help Dorian,” she mumbles. 

Krem catches her big hand with his calloused one.

“Damla…” Damla shivers when he says her name despite herself. Krem takes a breath, and bites his lip. He looks around, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. “Where’s Bull?”

“I don’t know,” Damla says, trying to keep the bitterness and hysterics out of her voice. She glances around for him too. “I left him with Gatt. I didn’t think he was going to sound the retreat. That... _Qunari_ didn’t want him to. I thought he was going to let you die for his precious orders.”

Krem blinks, understanding dawning on his handsome, still bleeding face. 

Damla’s hand shake as she yanks out the dagger on her hip and slices of a piece of fabric from the back of her coat. She slides the dagger away.

“So, you came to rescue me?” Krem smiles, faintly.

Damla shakes her head, as though denying it will make will maker her fear less real, and says thickly, “I couldn’t leave you to die.”

Krem’s hand tightens around hers. She kneels in front of him and presses the cloth to his cheek. For a moment, they’re the same height, eyes on the same level. Then Krem leans forward and kisses her. Damla freezes, afraid to move in case she's imagining this, in case he'll realize what he's doing and stop. 

When he pulls back, there's a slight furrow between his brows and a question in his eyes. Damla strokes her long fingers down his unmarked cheek despite herself, and before he can say anything, whispers,

“I was so afraid, Krem. I thought I was going to lose you." Damla sinks fully to the ground and gathers Krem into her arms.

“You’re shaking,” he says softly.

She shakes her head to deny it, but it’s true. All this, the strain of today and the fear of losing Krem on top of her misgivings about working with the Qunari – it’s almost too much. Krem gives her a troubled look and kisses her forehead, beneath the base of her left horn.

“The Qunari!” she gasps, lurching to her feet and accidentally picking Krem up off the ground as she does so. In her rush to save the Chargers – save Krem – she’d forgotten that the Qunari threat still existed. Worse, now she and Bull had fucked up their plans. “Shit, shit, shit…” Damla looks down and notices Krem is dangling several inches off the ground, with her arms around his waist. “Shit, sorry, Krem,” she mumbles, her face going hot. She sets him down carefully, but he just laughs at her, his eyes warm. 

“’s all right, Worship. I can take a bit of manhandling.”

Damla swallows, ducking her head against her embarrassment, but the anxious flutter in her stomach still hasn’t subsided. Of course she was going to save Krem, but now she’s pissed off the Qunari, lost them a fucking dreadnought, and who knows what they’re going to do.

Bull’s voice intrudes on her panic. 

“Where’s Krem?” The Qunari – Tal-Vashoth, now, Damla supposes, booms. 

“Here, Chief,” Krem says, looking around Damla. 

Bull barrels towards them and then stops short, glancing between Krem and Damla for a moment before he claps Krem on the shoulder. 

“Krem,” Bull says, relief evident in his voice. “You’re all right.”

“I am, Chief,” Krem says, grasping at the huge muscle of Bull’s forearm in return.

Damla draws herself up to her full height, feeling naked without the weight of her staff in her palm. She glances at it where she left it propped up against the closest tree.

“Where’s your friend?” she asks, voice cold. 

Bull looks over. “Gone, Boss,” he says. “Took off when I called the retreat.”

The words ease some of the tension settling into Damla’s shoulders and she nods, jerkily.

“Look, Boss,” Bull starts. “About what happened…”

But Damla isn’t ready to hear it. She clenches her jaw.

“I’m going to make sure Stitches doesn’t need some help,” she says, grabbing for her staff and brushing past him.


	5. They Can't Hurt You Now

On the road, Damla is twitchy, glancing over her shoulder every five seconds like she expects a Qunari attack to come from nowhere. It’s ridiculous, and she knows it – if there are going to be consequences, it’s at least going to take some time for orders to make it up the chain of command and back. But still – logic doesn’t entirely help, not here. She’s had fear of the Qun drilled into her by the Saarebas that trained her since she was young, and maybe she’d still fear them even if that wasn’t the case. She’s a mage, and what they do to mages terrifies her. Templars – demons – none of that scares her like the thought of getting caught up by the Ben Hassrath, and killed or enslaved. It is her worst nightmare, except for – that other thing, the one she’s resigned herself to and doesn’t fear so much as unhappily accepts. 

Dorian keeps close, giving her worried looks that she feels rather than sees every so often. Krem’s up the way, talking in low, worried tones with Bull. He looks back at her, but only once, and Damla feels something inside her shrivel and die when he turns back to Bull. She’d made a fool of herself running after him today, tipped her hand, for all intents and purposes declared her undying love for him or some shit. It was absurd. He seems to like her okay, but the moment Bull had reappeared, he’d gone after him. It figures he would choose the boss he’d known and trusted over her. It made sense. Void, she wasn’t even sure that technically it was a ‘choose me or him’ thing, now that Bull was – apparently – Tal Vashoth. But it felt that way. Maybe it was just her, letting her own fears keep her angry at him, but it wasn’t an easy thing to forgive, that Bull could hesitate like that, even if it was a lifetime of training and brainwashing he was rebelling against. She sighs. None of this is easy. Of course not. Her…feelings for Krem, since she can no longer deny them, only complicate matters. And here she’d hoped to not have to deal with that particular complication again for a good long time, not after Blackwall. Rainier. Whatever. 

To top it all off, it’s the Storm Coast, so it’s been drizzling all day. Damla doesn’t mind the cold, never has, but the wet is plain irritating (literally, her thighs are starting to chafe from the damp). She leaves Cassandra in charge of setting up camp and organizing the watch, and disappears inside her private tent the moment it’s up. 

She’s stripped down to breastband and a pair of dry breeches, hung her wet leather and clothing up from a tent pole to dry as best it can. She sits cross-legged by her bedroll and washes the day’s grease from her hair till it lies flat and wet against her scalp, then tugs her tin of lavender horn balm out. Horn caps removed and set aside, she lotions her horns thoroughly, one at a time. 

“Damla?” a voice murmurs outside her tent flap, and then it’s being pushed aside to reveal a damp, tousled Cremisius Aclassi. Damla squawks. 

“I reckon it’s custom for most people to wait for a response before barging in,” she says with a frown.

For his part, Krem looks a little sheepish. “Sorry, Your Worship,” he says, back to the old formal term of address. “I didn’t think.”

Damla tugs the old rag she uses for this very purpose out of her pack and wipes her hands clean on it. 

“What can I do for you, Krem?” she asks, sighing. She really does not want to talk to him, or anyone, right now. Hence the immediate disappearing-into-the-tent act. She’s the Inquisitor; she can allow a few indulgences like private tents and delegation of responsibilities now, if she feels like it. 

He doesn’t answer right away, instead eying the still-open tin of horn balm and Damla’s uncapped horns. She realizes, abruptly, that he’s never seen her without the blade-sharp metal ends on her horns, and feels more exposed than she would if she were truly naked. He steps closer. 

“May I?” he asks, his voice soft, reverent even. He gestures at the tin vaguely, and Damla’s not entirely sure what he’s asking, so she just inclines her head. Krem scoops the tin off the ground and moves around behind her.

“I help the Chief with his horns, sometimes,” Krem says, by way of explanation. Damla grunts. She definitely doesn’t want to hear about Bull. A gentle hand grips the horn Damla hadn’t quite finished with, and starts rubbing balm into it. “He says you make the best horn balm he’s ever seen,” he adds, conversationally. “Works wonders, I guess.”

“Hm. My own personal recipe,” Damla says, relaxing despite herself at the firm but gentle massage of his fingers. “I’ve spent a long time perfecting it.”

Krem leans in close to her scalp; she can feel his body heat behind her as one hand slips down to her shoulder. 

“The stuff you give him doesn’t smell like this,” Krem murmurs, and Damla shivers at the low rumble of his voice behind her. Her ears twitch.

“Didn’t think he’d like mine. Put pine in his instead of lavender,” she says, aware she’s no longer forming complete sentences. 

“I like it,” Krem says, the hand on her shoulder shifting to the base of her neck and squeezing, just slightly. He rubs balm into the base of her horn right where it meets her skull with his other hand, and then his fingers skim her temple lightly. 

Damla holds back a groan. “Why are you here, Krem?” she asks, and it comes out more biting than she means it to. His fingers withdraw. 

“I just…wanted to see you were all right,” he says, after a moment of silence. 

Damla bites her lip. “I’m fine,” she says, a bit strangled. It’s not convincing at all, but at least it’s better than what she really wants to say, which is something along the lines of _I think I’m falling in love with you, because the thought of losing you terrifies me, and there’s a thousand different reasons why this is a terrible idea, not least that you clearly don’t feel the same way_. 

Krem finally moves around in front of her again, setting the tin carefully on the ground.

“Are you?” he asks, his eyes on her face. Damla nods tightly. 

“Are _you_?” she asks, reaching to touch the now-clean cut on his cheek, and stopping herself at the last second. She clears her throat. “No – emergence of serious injuries, or anything?”

He smiles faintly, eyes crinkling around the corners. 

“Thanks to you, I’m quite whole,” he says. 

“Good. That’s good.” 

Damla tries not to think of his lips against hers earlier and his hand on her horn just now, since it’s obvious these are not things he wants from her, even if she does want him so badly sometimes she can’t breathe with it. It’s never been like this before. With Blackwall, there wasn’t – it wasn’t the same. None of this dancing around the bush; he kissed her and meant it and called her lady, and they had basically courted, hadn't they? Even if they'd only slept together the one time. And the others – well, none of them stuck around long enough to drive her mad with the wanting of them. Quick fucks for the accomplishment of it, the bragging rights, that’s all she’d ever been to the others, and she’d known it. But Krem – Krem is quite possibly the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, and he’s adamantly resisted her every attempt at seducing him, even if he does still treat her like a good friend, and sometimes more than a good friend. 

Damla doesn’t understand it at all.

She wraps her arms about herself, and Krem’s still standing there staring at her, which is another thing she doesn’t understand, and isn’t really sure she wants to understand, because maybe he’s just like all the rest, wanting his own version of her in his head to be the real one, seeing her as just another of those horned giants or as The Lady Inquisitor before she is Damla, and if she thinks about him too hard she’ll probably know for sure. Better to pretend he’s different because what she feels for him is different, at least for now. There’ll be time for dissuading herself from her delusions later. Not tonight. 

“Really, I just wanted to see you,” Krem finally says. 

Damla blinks, her thoughts stalled.

He steps forward into her personal space before she really has time to process that statement, and then he’s cupping her cheek in one hand and tilting her head back by the horns with the other and kissing her with a certainty that takes her breath away. She melts into the kiss, lets him lead it for a moment, and then another, and another, and he doesn’t stop, just presses close to her till the cold metal of his breastplate is digging into the bare skin of her chest and stomach, and that’s enough to startle her into pushing him away. 

“Krem, what are you - what are you doing?” she whispers, hating how wrecked her voice sounds, hating how damp and swollen and inviting his lips look, warring with the urge to pull him back again and never let him go. 

He puts a hand on his hip. 

“Kissing you,” he says, matter of factly. “Making up for our interruption earlier, if you want to be terribly specific.”

“But you – but I – I thought you-” Damla’s mouth goes dry as Krem starts unbuckling his armor, shedding vambraces and breastplate, and dropping them to the floor. “I thought you didn’t want that from me,” she finally says, as he pulls a padded gambeson over his shoulders, the shirt underneath riding up to expose his flat, hard stomach. 

Krem shoots her a baffled look. 

“Where in the void did you get that idea?” 

“Before, when I – when I kissed you back at Skyhold,” Damla says, waving a hand as an excuse to do something with it other than wring her hands together. "You didn't - ah - you didn't kiss me back, and then you turned away, like...like I disgusted you, or...something."

Krem goes very still, his hands no longer tugging the hem of his shirt into place. 

"You thought I...oh. Oh, no, Damla. Oh, amatus."

Damla hugs herself more tightly, and Krem steps closer. 

“You were drunk, Damla,” he says, in a more gentle tone. “And it had barely been three days since you’d told Rainier to stick it where the sun don’t shine. I wasn’t about to take advantage of you in a state like that. You would have regretted it in the morning.”

“I would not have,” Damla says hotly, and Krem looks a little surprised by her vehemence. 

“Well, I would have, then,” he says, touching her cheek. “I didn’t want it to be like that, not the first time. And I don't think I would have had the heart to stop you if you'd kept kissing me like that.”

“You’re a sodding romantic,” Damla mutters. “Who knew.”

Krem traces his fingers down her chin and over her lips. 

“Amatus,” he murmurs, “I want more than just to fuck you. I wanted to be sure you knew that before we did anything else.” Damla swallows and Krem steps back to run his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath. “I’ve mucked that one up, haven’t I? If you thought I didn’t want you at all.”

“I can’t tell what you want from me, Krem,” Damla says, a little hysterically. “Not that that should come as any surprise. Looking at my record, it’s obvious I can’t understand anybody’s motivations when it comes to wanting me.” She looks at the floor and mutters, “It was easier when all they did want was for me to fuck them.”

“I don’t want to fuck you, Damla,” he says, quickly. “I mean, I do _want_ to, but it’s never just been about that. You deserve more, you deserve so much better, and I don’t want to be like Rainier. I want to _be_ with you, not just have you. It’s…” he makes a noise of frustration and rakes his fingers back through his hair, again, and then he drops to his knees in front of her. “Look, part of this is me, okay? I don’t…do casual sex, not really. At first it was just a necessity, keeping a secret, trying to keep anyone in the army from finding out what I had between my legs. After I joined up with Bull, I could do what I want, _be_ with who I want, and I did for a while, but there were a lot of people who just didn’t understand, and didn’t accept me. I don’t think there’s a word for what I am, aqun athlok, here in the south - there wasn’t in Tevinter - and not everyone wanted me when they found out. After a while, I just - stopped trying. Told myself I’d wait until someone really special came around. And when I met you…” he stops, inhales, bites his lip.

Damla has forgotten how to breathe. “When you met me, what?” she whispers.

Krem takes her hand.

“When I met you, it was the first time in a long time that I thought I’d found someone worth the wait.”

Damla tries to choke back the rush of emotion in her throat and fails. Varric calls her ‘Frosty’ and Maker, she wishes she could be as aloof as the nickname makes her sound, an ice queen, heart locked behind thick thick walls where they can’t hurt her anymore. She wishes she didn’t want so badly, wishes she could accept her own aching loneliness as well as she tells herself she does, but she can’t. She never has been able to. The walls she has around her heart are brittle like thin ice, nothing like the sturdy armor she can craft from ice to protect her heart physically, and the best she’s ever been able to manage to do is to pretend that she’s above it all, pretend that the leers and the one night stands don’t bother her because she chose them herself, but when she see the way they look at her, these other humans she’s taken to bed, she knows they think of her as little more than an animal and she can’t do anything except pretend it doesn’t hurt. And then when she thought maybe she’d found one, just one, who wanted her for herself, he turned out to have only ever seen his own wants reflected in her, seen the lady where there wasn’t one, seen the absolution he craved like she was some…some spirit of Redemption, when all she has ever been is flesh and bone and want. Damla doesn’t know what to do with _this_ man on his knees in front of her, professing to want her for herself, not for her horns or her title or her supposed holiness, because fuck if what Krem is offering her isn’t everything she’s ever wanted, and that makes it wrong, doesn’t it? It’s too good to be true. 

“Damla?” Krem whispers, and his voice cracks on her name, and she realizes she still hasn’t said anything at all. 

“Krem, I…” she says weakly, and she lifts a hand to try and rub the heat behind her eyes away discreetly, because he’s still gripping the other one like he’s afraid to let go. But she can feel the pressure behind her eyes and the lump in her throat, and rubbing her eyes only makes it worse.

“You’re crying,” he says, and Damla shakes her head violently to deny it, but the sob in her throat catches and rips its way out. Damla wrenches her hand from his grasp to bury her face in both hands and cries. Krem slides closer to her, wraps his arms around her. Damla buries her head in his shoulder, which is awkward considering how much taller she is and her neck will probably hurt later, but she doesn’t care. He murmurs to her, soft shushes and her name and occasionally that word again, amatus, running a hand over the back of her skull and the line of her spine. 

“I’m sorry,” she finally chokes out, tears still in her eyes, her voice raw.

Krem huffs, his breath brushing her temple.

“Why are you apologizing? You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Yes I do,” Damla pulls back. “You’re trying to be sweet, and saying you want me, and my first reaction is to – to break down in your arms.” She folds her arms over her chest and says miserably, “I’m a mess.”

“And I’m the asshole whose best intentions made you cry.” Krem brushes away the drying tears on her cheeks. “I think we’re even.”

She snorts and laughs, her arms dropping to her sides. She leans forward and leans her forehead against his. Krem grips the back of her skull. 

“I was trying so hard to be strong,” she says softly. “I told myself it was better to be alone, that I was better off not trying for love anymore, because it all only ever goes horribly wrong, and what did I need anybody else for, anyways.” 

“I know,” he says, and he does, doesn’t he. He knows what it’s like to be reduced to just one thing in the eyes of everyone who sees him – she’s just a set of horns to them, and he’s just a woman pretending to be a man, and that’s all most anyone can seem to notice. But she’s not just an oxman, she’s a woman, and he’s not just his body, he’s a man, and they both have their fears and their hopes, and they are _more_ , more than what everyone diminishes their identity to. 

“When Bull hesitated, when he didn’t sound the retreat right away, I was so afraid. The thought of losing you…” 

Krem kisses her then, his lips warm and sure against hers like he can drown out the memory of her fear. It works, because all she can think about is feel of him, the scratch of his shirt against her bare stomach, his fingers wrapped around one horn, his smell like rain and sweat and sea and blood in her nose. She whimpers, drags him closer to her by one arm around his shoulders, and his lips shift to the corner of hers, drag along the sharp edge of her jaw, up to her ear. He kisses the edge of it until he reaches the pointed tip, and this he drags into his mouth. Damla shudders violently, her head twisting, and she tries to hold still so she doesn’t whack his forehead with her horns. 

Pulling back with a wet noise, Krem hmms, running one finger along the curve of her horn.

“These might complicate things, won’t they.”

“You’re just lucky I took the caps off already,” she says, laughing a little, and Krem grins at her. He bumps his nose against the side of her horn and inhales, and Damla twitches, moving to stare at him and actually knocking the front of her horn against his head in the process. “What are you doing?” 

Krem rubs the side of his brow and shoots her a rueful look. 

“They’re beautiful, you know,” he says. This earns him an even more confused look. He taps her horn meaningfully.

Damla tilts her head, her lips twitching, and she seems to preen for a moment. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs, suddenly shy, dropping her gaze. Krem leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, at the base of her horn. “Nobody’s ever complimented my horns before.”

“I’m from Tevinter. Seen a lot of horns. Believe me, I know an attractive set when I see them.” Krem says cheekily as he settles back on his heels in front of her.

“Is that so?” Damla strokes the backs of her long fingers over his unmarred cheekbone, her gaze lingering on his lips and then traveling slowly back up to his eyes. 

“Mm.” 

“Clearly I’ve been fucking too many southerners,” Damla says, smirking. “Where have you been all my life?”

Krem’s smug expressions slips, the warmth in his eyes suddenly sincere as he cups her cheek in his hand and murmurs, “Making my way to you, amatus.”

It’s slow, the way he kisses her this time, not careful exactly, but deliberate, a steady press of his lips and his body against hers, and Damla sinks against him, lets her fingers brush through the short hair on the nape of his neck. It’s like finding your center in a storm, reminds Damla of the solid way her staff feels under her palm in the middle of a battle, support and strength and perhaps everything she’s been pretending she wasn’t looking for. 

Krem kisses her once more and pulls back, but he doesn’t get very far with Damla’s arms wrapped around his waist. 

“Stay,” she says. She glances at his discarded armor. “I mean, even if you weren’t planning on it. Please? We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“All right.” He presses a kiss to her nose. “Do we need my bedroll? I can go and get it.” He moves to stand.

Damla hooks her fingers in his belt to stop him.

“We can share mine.”

That settles that. Damla gathers up her horn balm and tucks it and the rag back into her pack, pulling her extra blanket out. Krem settles his armor into a neater pile, takes off his boots, and then tugs his shirt off over his head, and Damla catches her breath when he turns back to her. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to cover himself – he moves his arms like he’s going to fold them over his chest, almost reflexively, and then drops them down to his sides and takes a breath. 

Damla sits down on her bedroll and holds out a hand to him, which he takes with only a moment of hesitation. She tugs him down beside her, and admires him while he settles. He has biceps bigger than Cassandra’s, the best abs she’s ever seen and tiny breasts. Damla sprawls a big hand against the taut muscles of his stomach. He jumps a bit at the touch, and the grin Damla gives him is unrepentant.

“Maker,” she sighs, pitching her voice to the melodramatic side. “I was afraid of this. You remain the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.”

That’s enough to startle a laugh out of him, and he relaxes under her hand, leaning back on his elbows. 

“You’re not bad yourself.”

Damla smiles at him, leaning forward to ghost her lips over his stomach and then pulling back. She reaches around and undoes the clasps of her breastband, dropping it aside. It’s strange, then, how the loss of just a small piece of fabric makes her also feel exposed, and she has to resist the urge to fidget, at least until she sees the way Krem is looking at her. She’s nothing like him, all grey-tan skin scarred by years as a mercenary, even if there aren’t as many scars as Bull has, and though she’s got some definition to her arms, her stomach isn’t exactly small, or flat, and her breasts are small maybe for her size, but they're bigger than most human women's. She looks soft, even if the scars undermine that image. Krem’s got this look, though – heat, yes, behind his eyes, but more than that, his gaze is soft – fuck, tender even. Damla doesn’t really know what to do with that kind of look. Rainier looked at her like she was the sun and he was standing in her shadow with nothing but adoration in his eyes, and the rest, they looked at her like she was a piece of meat, or at least nothing more than a body. This, though, this isn’t lust or worship, though maybe there’s elements of both of those. It’s more real, more right. She thinks it might be love.

Damla brushes her fingers over his cheek, and he smiles at her, and she kisses him. He presses her back against the bedroll and settles between her thighs, and then it’s just the two of them, chest to chest, slow kisses and meandering touches. The rain still falls against the roof of the tent, and further down the shore, Damla can hear the crash of the waves, but here, with Krem in her arms, it’s warm and safe. She pulls the covers over them both eventually, and Krem slides off till he’s curled up in her arms, by her side, and when she falls asleep it’s with his face tucked against her neck and his fingers interlocked with hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is pretty much just an excuse to give an Inquisitor of mine who didn't want to fall in love with any of the LIs a happy ending. Also Krem, because he deserves all the good things ever. Thoughts on his characterization, in particular, would be appreciated, because I was really trying to get him right. :)
> 
> As always, you can find me as [thecryoftheseagulls](http://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
